Julien Baker Brings Hope to Marathon Music Works

Surprisingly, Julien Baker’s set at Marathon Music Works was already more than halfway over before the tears started to well up in The Spin's eyes. The Memphis singer has rightfully earned her reputation as one of today’s saddest songwriters, crafting heartbreaking ballads about depression, addiction and fighting to find and keep faith in trying times. (Read more about what Baker has to say about her new album, Turn Out the Lights, in this week’s music section.)

Given the news we had received earlier that day — in addition to an array of awful national and international stories, Scene editor Steve Cavendish and arts editor Laura Hutson were laid off Thursday morning as part of staff cuts across the company — we were fully prepared for Niagara Falls to pour out our eyes the instant Baker opened her mouth. Her beautiful, blunt songs can be hard to listen to when you're feeling especially vulnerable. But only after she finished a stunning rendition of “Everything That Helps You Sleep” did the floodgates open.

“That song is about not knowing if the good that you do or try to do is enough, and feeling especially confused and uncertain,” she told the crowd.

Too real, Julien Baker. Too fucking real.

“This song,” she continued, “is about choosing to engage despair with the choice of hopefulness, which I think is an important decision.” Then she played “Claws in Your Back,” the album closer from this year’s Turn Out the Lights, with such awe-inspiring strength that a man in the audience yelled "Holy shit!" as soon as the final words — “I wanted to stay” — left her mouth.

Our thoughts exactly, sir.

But let’s back up. The show didn’t start out being the saddest evening in the history of all evenings. Sure, there was the looming discomfort of an unpredictable future for the very weekly paper you’re reading, but thankfully Fever Blush (formerly known as Lean, and featuring Daddy Issues' Jenna Moynihan on guitar and vocals) warmed the crowd up with a little bit of a party.

While some rock bands are currently starry-eyed over the ’90s, Fever Blush has a sweet and subtle ’80s vibe to their shoegaze-y pop. They were especially excited to be playing on Thursday because, as Moynihan announced, they had just released their new two-song EP, Remember, Forget earlier that day.

David Bazan almost went unnoticed when he first took the stage, alone with his guitar. Without an introduction, he launched right into “Over My Eyes,” which segued into “Care,” the title song from his newest album. Cellphones were noticeably absent from sight, as the audience was rapt by Bazan’s worn voice, which has been captivating fans for years, both in his solo act and during his tenure as frontman for Pedro the Lion. “Hi, I’m Dave,” he finally said, to which someone hollered enthusiastically, “David!”

“Or David!” he replied, to laughter that felt like a relief, as if he'd just given us permission. “My official brand name is David Bazan. I can’t change it, that’s what it is. Except I’m about to change it to Pedro the Lion.”

In October, Bazan announced he’d be reinstating his old moniker. While he's only announced West Coast tour dates so far, he did say a PtL show would be happening in Nashville soon. Keep your eyes peeled.

Then, he dipped into older material like “Hard to Be” from 2009’s Curse Your Branches, “Strange Negotiations” from 2011’s album of the same name and, perhaps as a little tease of his future endeavors, Pedro the Lion’s “Bands With Managers” from 2004’s Achilles Heel.

Bazan’s between-song banter has always been the highlight of his live performances, and this show was no exception. A few nuggets of wisdom: “Keep your hands off the ladies, you guys”; “Don’t do what your elders are doing”; and the motto we'd like to see cross-stitched and hung up on everyone’s wall, “Jesus fucking Christ, you guys, we need to try harder.”

Because we do. It’s true. It feels like the world is burning down all around us, but this is no time to give up. As it happens, that is the perfect mindset in which to best enjoy Julien Baker’s music.

Baker walked onto the stage, minimally decorated with a few hanging Edison bulbs, and started her set with the sparkly intro to Turn Out the Lights’ first single, “Appointments." For a moment, it was so quiet we could hear the click of her guitar pedals. She soon filled the air with a soaring voice so much larger than anything we’ve ever heard from her on record. On the albums, we get a glimpse of a human who’s struggling and fighting her battles through gorgeous but oh-so-sad music. But live, Baker becomes ferocious and determined, her voice dancing through subtle shifts in tone and dynamics that eclipse anything you can capture on tape.

When we listen to Baker at home and she’s singing about being alone, afraid of her own thoughts and unpredictable actions, it’s just the two of us. The honesty can be overwhelming. But her catalog appears in a different light when hundreds of people are singing along, where everyone can admit that they are imperfect while seeing that everyone around them feels imperfect, too. Seeing Julien Baker live changes everything you’ve ever known about Julien Baker.

This phenomenon isn't lost on her. She sang “Everybody Does,” about feeling like everyone is going to desert you, with the crowd engaged in the quietest, most polite sing-along, softly crooning, “You’re gonna run / It’s alright / Everybody does” over and over. Afterward, she addressed it directly.

“What’s so amazing about that song," she said, "when all of you are singing it, instead of thinking, ‘Am I gonna hit this note?’ I can think, ‘Are we gonna hit this note?’ ”

After soaking in Baker’s mood-affecting catalog for several weeks, culminating on a day that easily landed in the Top 5 Worst of Our Year, we absolutely cried at the show. But it wasn’t because we were sad. It was for the opposite reason: Baker reminded us that, even when life gets dark, it’s worth holding onto hope.